Geographic Differences

Figure 6: Cloud Adoption Interactive Map
world Asia/Pacific overlay EMEA overlay Latin America overlay North America overlay
Asia/Pacific hotspot
EMEA hotspot
Latin America hotspot
North America hotspot

The data revealed some notable differences across geographies.

Private cloud adoption was found to be highest in Latin America and North America, in which 52% and 48% of respondents said they are currently using private cloud or have firm plans to adopt it, followed by EMEA (45%) and Asia/Pacific (39%) (Figure 7).

A similar story was found for public cloud adoption in which 41% of Latin American, 38% of North American, 36% of EMEA, and 35% of Asia/Pacific respondents said they are currently using or have firm plans to implement public cloud.

59% of North American, 66% of Latin American, 57% of EMEA, and 51% of Asia/Pacific respondents said they had implemented or have firm plans to implement cloud services of any type.

Figure 7: North America and Latin America Lead in Cloud Maturity

There is a fair amount of consistency in maturity levels across geographies. North America and Latin America have the largest number of companies in one of the top 3 cloud adoption categories (Optimized, Managed, or Repeatable), each with 29% of companies falling into this camp. EMEA is next at 23% and Asia/Pacific has 21%. There are several drivers behind these differences. Asia/Pacific and Europe had lower adoption rates of cloud than the Americas. Specifically, Europe had lower public cloud adoption and Asia/Pacific as a whole had lower private cloud adoption. And among non-cloud adopters, respondents in Asia/Pacific and Europe scored lower on the readiness scale based on the cloud-specific skills and tasks they currently perform.

Looking at expected key performance indicator benefits by region tells a slightly different story. Through this lens, Latin America and Asia had the largest percentages of respondents who believe that cloud will have a positive impact on their KPIs. North America had somewhat fewer respondents who believe cloud will positively impact their KPIs, and EMEA had the least. Multiple responses are allowed in this question, and a large number of respondents in all regions indicated at least one, and often, several KPI benefits associated with cloud.